


Dance is art and art is an experience.

by IrisofParadise



Series: Domestic AU [15]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 19:18:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20953580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrisofParadise/pseuds/IrisofParadise
Summary: In which Sasha is trying to find inspiration in Nadya's dancing but it's just not working out for him.





	Dance is art and art is an experience.

**Author's Note:**

> So this has been on my tumblr for a while and I'm just now putting it on here.
> 
> OCs include:  
-Sasha Barnes-Wilson (20), adopted son of Sam and Bucky.  
-Grisha Braginsky (20), youngest son of my two Veles mafia ocs, Liliya and Valery.  
-Nadya Tchaikova (19), daughter of Sergei and my Veles mafia oc, Vera.  
-Peyton Li (briefly mentioned) (17), daughter of ocs André and Tiffany who are divorced.  
-Vasya Ranskahova-Murdock (14), adopted daughter of Matt and Vladimir.
> 
> Originally this was going to be a drabble centering on Sasha, Peyton, and Vasya as they are the og ocs but it evolved into something else entirely.  
Sasha, Nadya, and Vasya all do ballet. Grisha does not, he's just here for the ride as Sasha is his best friend.

_ **Hell's Kitchen, NY  
May, 2029** _

Nadya’s eye twitched as Sasha sighed heavily again from across the dance studio. She glanced at the mirror and stared with narrowed eyes at the reflection of the two boys. Sasha wasn’t even looking at her, instead he was covering his face and groaning into his hands, while Grisha at least had the decency to offer her a sheepish smile and small shrug, as if to say, ‘ _ what can you do? _ ’

She pirouetted in spot, whipping around in a blur of tulle so she could face the redhead. “What! Is your problem?” She finally snapped, eyes wide and mildly furious.

Sasha made a face at her, not fully annoyed or upset with her snapping at him as it was justifiable but shook his head. “This is just…” he trailed off, lips pursing. Then he ran his hand through his already messy hair. “This isn’t  _ working _ , Nadya.”

He didn’t know how to convey to her what he so desperately needed from her dancing. He didn’t want to offend her but at the same time she just wasn’t providing the material he needed in order to make his art have emotion to it. It didn’t feel raw enough. Not yet anyway.

Nadya rubbed at her temples, taking a deep breath and holding it for six seconds before slowly releasing it. “What is it exactly that you’re wanting from me, Sasha?” She finally asked, confused as to why he had done nothing but complain the whole time while watching her dance.

If it could even be called that as she had just barely gotten ten minutes of dancing past her stretches when he began huffing at her.

He crouched down and covered his face once more. “I’m not getting anything! I have to submit a painting for the gallery and I’m not struck! The inspiration!” He said desperately, not really caring how dramatic he sounded in that moment.

Grisha rolled his eyes at the other boy. “Maybe it’s the music? Maybe you’ve listened to it too much?” The brunette offered hesitantly. When neither Sasha or Nadya snapped at him he relaxed slightly. 

He glanced at the blonde. She wore a simple black leotard, open in the back, light pink tights that blended perfectly into her pink flats, and an asymmetrically cut black tulle skirt. She was dressed for a performance. One that Sasha wasn’t letting her fully give. Grisha looked over to a very bored teenage girl who had yet to say anything about what she was witnessing. 

She was sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the floor and slouched over so that her chin was resting on her fists, hair spilled over her shoulders and down her back, and eyes clouded over, clearly lost in her own thoughts.

She seemed content enough to be left alone, bored but content, so Grisha almost felt bad for calling attention to her as he asked her, “You can dance, can’t you?” He already knew the answer. He’d been to enough ballet performances to know that Vasya was a skilled dancer.

The fourteen year old gave him an insulted look, the first emotion aside from boredom that she’d shown since sitting down. 

“Uh. Duh.” A pause. “Why?” Vasya asked, eyes narrowing. 

Sasha turned to give Grisha an unamused look. He didn’t really want to draw Vasya. He wanted to draw Nadya. 

“You have dance clothes with you?” He asked, already eyeing her black dance bag. “Go change?”

The girl slowly looked up at Nadya for affirmation and at the elder girl’s nod, Vasya shrugged and stood in one swift fluid motion. Once the door to the studio shut behind her Sasha smacked his friend in the arm. 

“Dude. Really?” 

Grisha rubbed his arm. “What?”

Sasha just shook his head then turned his attention back to Nadya. “Why’d you even bring her today?”

Nadya raised an eyebrow at him. Sasha wasn’t typically so temperamental.  _ ‘This project of his must be more important than he’s letting on,’ _ Nadya thought to herself. “I promised her we’d go shopping today. It gets stuffy with all the testosterone in the garage.”

Grisha nodded in understanding. Just counting the ‘children’ of the Veles garage there were more boys than the two girls. And with Alexei, Taka, Rick, and Nick coming into the picture, yeah, Nadya and Vasya were vastly outnumbered at the Veles Taxi garage.

Sasha groaned but let the matter drop. With Vasya joining in on the dancing he couldn’t help but feel more stressed out. He was going to have to toss out his whole idea of how he wanted to draw Nadya. He paused the song that was playing on repeat and sighed. Grisha may have had a point, the song must have worn off its delicate charm over him. This was not how he wanted this to go.

The door opened and Vasya paused, one foot in the studio, as the three young adults stared at her. 

“Uhm…”

Sasha waved her in. “Come on, then.”

The door closed as she stepped fully in and tossed her bag over to where Nadya’s was.

She wore light pink ballet flats, black tights and black leotard with a simple baby pink wrap skirt tied on. Her hair was now pulled up in a perfect bun just like Nadya’s was.

“So, uh, what are we doing exactly?” Vasya asked as she began to do her stretch routine.

Sasha crossed his arms and stared at her. Then to Nadya. “I’m going to draw the two of you. Well, more like sketch. And it’s going to be how you make the audience feel. When I show this off at the gallery I want everyone there to feel as though they’re right here. Watching you two dance. So… we’re going to just wing it, I guess,” he said with a small sigh. 

He picked up his sketch pad and delicately chose a charcoal pencil from his case. “So you two start there,” he indicated towards the center of the floor with his pencil, “and just let the music take you how it feels to you?” He instructed, hoping that made sense to them. 

It appeared to as both nodded at him.

Vasya raised her hand. “What are we dancing to? Is it going to be the same song that Nadya’s been dancing to or something new?”

Sasha frowned. He hadn’t thought of a new song quite yet. He looked at Nadya for help in deciding, trusting her judgement. She just raised an eyebrow at him, clearly amused. Sasha did ballet too and here he was acting as if he knew no other music for them to dance to.

Vasya nodded in understanding, lowering her hand slowly. “Ah.” She snapped her fingers and grinned brightly. “I have something we could try?”

Sasha shrugged. “Go for it.” He figured he had nothing to lose by allowing a thirteen year old to select the music choice. 

She went over to her bag and pulled her phone from it, tapping at the screen as she walked over to Sasha’s portable speaker he’d brought and connecting to it via bluetooth. 

At once a beautiful violin began playing. Sasha held his breath. The song started off slowly but at once made him feel a mixture of emotions he wasn’t quite sure how to go about naming. 

“Alright. Go,” he said, staring at the two ballerinas in front of him.

Nadya shrugged. “You got it boss.” She gave a lazy salute before slipping into first position, Vasya doing the same directly in front of her.

Both girls inhaled deep breaths and allowed the music to surround them, pushing their limbs into movements as if on their own. Soft piano joined in with the violin. 

Nadya was the first to move, sliding her right foot along the floor before brushing it into the air, leaping and performing a perfect plié before landing in fifth position. She moved so she had a coupe to the back, left foot pointed and both legs turned out; plié. She came to second position with her legs out and relevé before crossing forward and returning to her coupé position. 

At the same time Vasya performed rapid even steps, not en pointe which was atypical for a bourée but she didn’t care. The music made her feel like gliding so gliding is what she did, humming softly along to the music. She spun into a pirouette, eyes closing, arms moving daintily from first position to fifth, quickly dropping to fourth then maneuvered them so her arm that was in front of her was now behind her and the other remained raised. 

Nadya glanced over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow as Vasya bent forward with her right leg raised so her toes were pointed almost straight to the ceiling, a near perfect penché. 

Nadya spun into a series of pirouettes until she was closer to the young teenager and helped her raise her leg so her toes were perfectly pointed to the ceiling. Vasya grinned up at her, a silent thanks.

Nadya leaped sideways, a pas de chat, and Vasya followed behind her.

Sasha watched the duo with bated breath. He hadn’t been sure how to feel about them not having a routine and just dancing how they felt. He rather liked having a plan himself, improvising often times wasn’t his strong suit. And as the two ballerinas began their own dances he couldn’t help but feel awe at their raw talent shining through.

He was no stranger to watching either girl dance, he’d been dancing with Nadya for well over ten years and he’d performed with Vasya on a handful of occasions, sat in on some of her classes over the years. As older students he and Nadya had been given the opportunity to help the younger dancers. But this, watching the two of them dance fluidly with no directions whatsoever and just freestyling to their own minds, well, it was amazing to witness. 

The music was amazing, emotional. The two dancers were brilliant. It was an awe inspiring experience. 

And Sasha knew exactly how he wanted to convey that to his sketch and later to canvas. 

Nadya slowed her dance in order to help position Vasya’s arms better. Then performed a temps levé, her left foot behind her, right hand on her hip, and left arm raised. Vasya followed after her, leaping into a split with her right foot first and landing on her left. 

Vasya’s arms spread away from her body as the music grew louder. Her feet slide with poise across the floor, one arm raised in front of her and eyes closed, feeling at peace as the music swirled around her. 

A content sigh left Nadya before she even realized it. Her arms were raised above her, head leaned back slightly, as she spun slowly in place before slipping into an attitude position with her left leg raised in front of her body.

A series of leaps and jumps from both ballerinas, arms flying gracefully, accompanied by a series of pirouettes. The dances were just for fun, both taking turns lightly chasing after the other. For some parts they looked excited, happy and hopeful and radiating, for others they conveyed through their faces and dances hurt and loss. It matched beautifully with the music playing. 

Sasha felt as though he were addicted to every note that played as he was watching Nadya’s and Vasya’s freestyle performance. 

The music comes to a stop and the two dancers come to a graceful stop, Vasya being the last to stop her movements with her arms slowly drawing in close to her chest and eyes closed. When she opened them she looked right at Sasha. 

He was glancing between her and Nadya and his sketchpad. 

“You got everything you need or should we run through it again?” Nadya asked. 

Sasha shook his head, pencil still furiously scratching against paper. “No, I’m good,” he muttered. He glanced up and gave a small thankful smile to the two girls. “Thanks.”

Nadya smiled warmly. “Anytime Sasha.” She tilted her head for Vasya to follow her. 

While Vasya just flashed her signature grin and gave a thumbs up before following Nadya’s lead and grabbing her bag.

**~oOo~**

A week and a half later finds Sasha humming the song that Vasya had played in the studio as he added the finishing touches to his project. 

He couldn’t get it out of his head. Not that he wanted to really. It had been beautiful. And after a couple days of humming it to himself he’d asked Vasya who the composer was.

Vasya had grinned proudly. “My friend’s sister composed it! Their dad works with an orchestra and both Peyton and Marie are super talented with instruments!”

Sasha had just nodded but couldn’t help feeling disappointed. He wanted to listen to more of Peyton’s music.

The creaking of the door opening in the gallery startles Sasha from his thoughts. He glances down from his position on the ladder and waves at Grisha and Nadya.

“Wow,” Grisha breathed out in awe. “This is how Nadya’s dancing inspired you?”

Nadya blushed slightly. 

Sasha made sure the last part of his project was hanging securely before climbing down. “It wasn’t just Nadya…”

“Yeah, Vasya helped!” Nadya laughed, grinning at Sasha.

_‘And Peyton’s music,’_ Sasha thought to himself but bit his tongue. He stepped back to stand with his friends to take in his finished project. 

A large white canvas hung on the wall with circles of various shapes cut out sporadically throughout it. Fishing line held those same cut out circles, allowing them to hang in midair at various heights. Light blues mixed with grays and greens in varying shades swirled around the canvas and hanging circles in no particular design, golds and silvers flecked randomly throughout the whole piece.

He loved it and thought it was his best project as of yet. It felt good.

Without even turning away from his masterpiece Sasha asked his friends, “How does it make you feel?”

Neither answered for a moment as they searched for the right words. Grisha was the first to respond.

“Happy. Well, content is maybe more like it?” He shrugged. “I like it a lot and it makes me think of…” he trailed off, unsure as to how to say it made him feel or what it made him really think of.

“Dancing.” Nadya stated, staring at the canvas with one hand over her heart. “It makes me feel like I’m dancing and alive.” She traced the swirl patterns with her eyes and could see in her mind herself dancing in the mirrors at the studio. 

Grisha nodded. “I just feel like it’s art in every form, you know? I can see music in it and dancing and the painting itself. It’s art.”

Sasha nodded, seemingly pleased with these answers. He felt that Grisha was correct, it was art in all its forms conveyed into a single canvas. When he looked at it, he heard a beautiful violin. He saw Nadya’s and Vasya’s carefree dancing. 

“Mm!” Nadya snapped her fingers before rummaging around in her purse. “That reminds me! Vasya wanted me to give this to you!” She said, handing Sasha a small flash drive. “She said it’s got more of her friend’s music on it and you may like it,” Nadya explained with a shrug. 

Sasha clenched the flash drive in his hand tightly, afraid that if he loosened his hold on it the drive would vanish into thin air, Peyton’s compositions away with it. 

“I’ll have to thank her.”


End file.
